


The Human Touch

by kuro49



Series: jason rare pair challenge [21]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids & Cyborgs, F/M, M/M, detachable dicks and robopussy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26919097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: All things break down into 1s and 0s. Jason is no different.Or, the AU where Jason still dies and still comes back, but he returns to Gotham as a cyborg.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul/Jason Todd, Talia al Ghul/Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne
Series: jason rare pair challenge [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1409680
Comments: 26
Kudos: 77
Collections: Jason Rare Pair Challenge





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the au where jason's head is the red hood helmet in itself (look a lot like [this](https://twitter.com/robots_and_lace/status/1078839267332448258?s=19) and [this](https://twitter.com/robots_and_lace/status/1247788509517119490?s=20) 😳). 
> 
> the first chapter will contain some thinly veiled plot but the second chapter is p much just porn. the detachable dicks and robopussy tag isn't there for no reason ;)

Gotham isn't prepared for what he's become.

Made out of parts salvaged to form more or less a whole, he is an amalgamation of human and machine and something distinctly beyond both of these things when dunked into the depths of the raging Lazarus Pits belonging to the one and only Demon's Head.

She shows him to himself in his completion: A red display in place of a face. Compact coil of parts holding together at the hinges by nuts and bolts and grease to soothe over the hard hitting pangs. Dripping coolant instead of blood. 

Every breath pulling through the twin fans at his back. 

His voice is flat, is contained, holds steady and even. There is no tone, no inflection, no filters, and no modulators. There is no indication to any of the emotions or feelings that is supposed to bleed through like a gaping wound upon infliction.

Not even a lilt at the end of his sentence to indicate a question.

「 how much of me is still me 」

When he speaks, he is so far removed from the Gotham back alley drawls that shaped him.

It's a fair question with no good answer.

Talia gives him a copy of his autopsy report to start: Extensive internal hemorrhaging. Third degree burns on nearly 90% of his body. Broken bones in every limb. Traumatic brain injuries with a focus on the plural. And the list goes on and on.

"Not much physically." Talia tells him the truth, a pause for him to run through every scenario that differs than the current reality. "But you're all you intrinsically, I made sure of that."

He sounds not of this world. He sounds out of this world.

And he sure feels like it too.

"Jason."

All things break down into 1s and 0s. His code is written in her hand. Yet, she isn't his creator. 

Talia al Ghul just puts him back together with the scraps that were left. (There weren't much.)

He sees her and she is different from anything he remembers even if what he remembers is fractured. Like film exposed to erode in the sun. He tilts his head up, and her face is contorted in its reflection across the convex of his display. The pale blush highlighting her cheeks is distorted and the deep red of her lipstick twists into a colour he has no name for. Something far darker than the things he's seen on his path to ready himself. 

"He's forsaken you." She still tells him what he needs to hear. "I will not have that."

「 has he now 」

A question. An unanswered one. None of the training from his tutors could have prepared him for this. Because the truth is simple when she turns over a photograph for him to see. 

It's worth a thousand words.

It's a man. A bat. A child. A _robin_.

A Robin that isn't himself.

A Robin in colours that are darker. All dressed up in armour that is more pronounced. A Robin that is a partner, not a distraction.

To fill in an empty spot hollowed out in the Gotham sky, this Robin lives. 

This Robin lives _too_. 

And if there's no room for him, Jason will force out a spot just for himself like with everything else. The sky here makes for a vast wide canvas that even the Bat cannot interrupt. The man doesn't get a say in this. Jason is all hers, and he is coming home to her. He is, after everything, her prince.

And her crown has always been his to take.

She reaches out, grazes her fingertips to his display. And there is warmth in those eyes of her, vibrance in the green.

Consideration, _maybe_.

"This isn't goodbye," she says.

He doesn't turn away when she leans in, he mirrors her to meet halfway. Her mouth brushes at his display, her hand slides down to feel the thick cords of his neck.

His answer as it finally comes is shy with hesitation: 

「 i did not think so ; you like me too much to give me up 」

With nothing left to correct, his worth understood by them both, she hums and eases inside of him.

His responding sigh is garbled but there is no mistaking the pleasure she makes him feel as she slides all the way inside. Has him taking her in full. Her movement is all sinew, her soft moan dripping from the slack part of her lips as the base of the strap-on made in the exact measurements of Bruce Wayne himself presses up against her clit.

He helps her, lifts up with a cant of his hips and spreads his thighs wider so she can fuck into him. First deeper then harder. Just as he loves, and just as she’s come to learn during these lost days of theirs.

The grind of hard rubber inside of him rubs along every single pleasure receptors she has lining his silicone cunt, and the feedback is an infinite loop. It gets him gasping sharply on every pass, the sound escaping out of him all shrill and high while the head of a makeshift Bruce’s cock spreads his passage apart, splitting him down the center to drive into the deepest part of his core.

She guides every thrust and the noises falling free from him has her on cloud nine too. 

She calls him _beloved_ for both their sake.

Jason feels for her, like Jason does for him.

In her own way, Talia loves them both in return.

"He doesn't know it yet." She tells him, and her hair curls lightly at their ends. She turns over and the slip of the sheets down to her lower back shows off an expanse of bare skin, gorgeous and dewy with perspiration. "But he will love you." 

Like _you_ love him, she doesn't add. And this is Talia at her kindest.

「 he does not know me 」

Not as I am at your hands. He answers. Not as I am now.

Her mouth curls into a smile, and it's indulgent. Like she knows every last flaw in his logic but is too nice to point every single one of them out.

"Just like that night when he first met you, Jason. He doesn't have to know you to love you." She says to him, like these are the unshakable facts as the world knows it. Some things are constant, and she knows this is one of those things. "He was always going to."

He is a frayed live wire.

And she is the electricity to flow through him.

Jason Todd comes home and Gotham welcomes him as she always does. Without fanfare. With a deep seeded knowledge that he was always going to come crawling back to her.

He follows his plan.

Stench of fresh blood soaking through the bottom of the duffle bag, and Jason decapitates eight men before he is tossing their heads at the feet of their bosses. Bright burn of an explosion erupting in the penthouse apartment of Janus Corps, and Jason fires a rocket launcher into Black Mask's personal office as _hello_. Rush of the Gotham night air whipping over the rooftops of the Bowery, and Jason runs at the chase of Batman and the first Boy Wonder.

He makes it worth their while. 

The near cinch of the grapple at his ankle. The near pull of the wire going taut. The sound of Bruce's name said out loud just as the train goes by is strictly for the thrill of it all. He drops clues after clues all over Gotham for the world's best detective to pick up. He reminds him that some buried bodies do not stay underground. There is no DNA to be left behind for Batman to test.

But maybe this here will change his mind.

He makes his homecoming one to be remembered.

"Who are you?"

Batman asks, and his question is punctuated by a move Jason knows by heart. 

Red Hood as he's known now sidesteps it with the practice of someone who has been put through the same paces on a mat in a controlled environment, of having the time and the experience to go through it once then twice then thrice and then enough times that his body knows exactly how to react before his brain truly registers what it really is.

Bruce is grasping at straws here when the Red Hood inspires all the wrong feelings inside of him.

Batman grinds down on his molars, and every word feels punched out of him as he asks again, biting out with all the authority he can muster into three simple words. Because it feels a lot like he should know him but he doesn't and that is only the start of it all. 

"Who. Are. You."

Jason doesn't show his hand, not just yet. Red Hood replies, and it is not any easier: 

「 take a good look ; this is your greatest failure 」

It is plain. 

It is simple.

It is a strike through straight to the soft tender parts of himself that remained human despite it all. It is a cut made clean through him to the very core. There is no recognition to be seen here within Bruce when he finally faces off with Batman as Jason is now.

What Jason does not know:

He is the ghost haunting Bruce at every turn in the Manor hallways, the dead end he keeps running into. With equal parts dread and anticipation dialed up to eleven, he is the nightmare Bruce welcomes after a long, long day. He is the connective tissue that keeps Bruce intact on his worst days, and there are too many of those since. He is also the chronic pain that no amount of self-medication can cure in the man.

He is not forgotten. 

He cannot be.

The truth that Bruce holds close and dear to his heart is that Bruce doesn't know any other way to live other than to mourn.

Jason cannot fathom any of this, however.

Jason is not here to force Bruce into making a hard decision. It has always been the simplest choice. It is Batman firing the gun held in his hand at Joker’s head without hesitation. It is Jason knowing that he is loved beyond the his fresh turned grave.

However. 

In the final crescendo with Joker incapacitated next to him, Jason faces off a Batman that does not make that choice. 

Instead.

When his display shatters upon impact, the noise to break out of him sounds a lot like a wounded animal. The gun in his hand drops to the ground. The batarang he pulls out of his display goes next.

It has him shaking.

The warnings alternate as they flash before his eyes, his auto-assessment encountering errors after errors where he takes the worst of the superficial damage. He knows it takes far more to ground him to a halt but he also knows this too is different. The shock overrides it all and it is a matter of seconds before his systems begin to shut down, one after another. 

He doesn't go down, he doesn't even drop to his knees.

He simply stills where he stands and brings a hand up to the cracked display.

He isn't sure if this is it. Or, if this is what should have him losing all hope. Seeing Bruce again was always going to hurt. (He just didn't think it would hurt _this_ much.)

「 i have come back to you ; b̵̲̽̏̐̀r̸̨̉͑̾̓̿̽͗̄̈́̒͗̈̈́̚u̶̖̠̥̦͇̅͐̄͐͑̽̃͛͝c̶͉̺̤̈́͆͝ê̴͔̳̥̪̦̾ͅ 」

His display goes dark. He imagines himself to say: I guess now I know what I’ve always meant to you. I mean nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing. noth— beneath the _Joker_ of all people — 

He shuts down.

  
  


"...Jay?" Bruce whispers as the cyborg before him crumples to the ground. The countdown hits zero, the explosives around them ignite.

The building comes down like all things do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i was sorely mistaken that i could wrap this fic up in 2 chapters. i swear it will be done by the next one 😔

He comes back online.

And in an empty room of what he recalls as one of the observation cells within the very back of the Batcave itself, Jason calls Talia instead of shutting down completely once more. This might just be character growth, he concludes. His display has not been repaired, the damage from the explosion itself is largely left untouched. The missing time is significant enough that Bruce has to have already categorized most of his major components, tracing every last bolt to where Talia sourced the material when she was still piecing him back together.

He remembers why Talia stored the bulk of his consciousness in the thigh.

It is the arrogance of men to think anything humanoid would go about the same rules that keep them rooted in place. It is also what lets him walk off head shots like they are absolutely nothing at all.

「 T̵̡̰͉͙̭̞̮͖͛̍̑ 」

He says her name. And the desperation is clear through all the static interference and the glitches from the damage to his voice command box. He doesn’t need to say her name in full. He knows she has been watching from afar. Keeping an eye out for him just as she's done since the very beginning when she placed the Kris blade into his hand and let him go home to Gotham like it doesn't always have to end in a tragedy.

Jason sits up on the cot. He knows he doesn't have much time before Bruce comes back and he isn't sure he can face the man as he is now.

The difference is that he was right here when Bruce first built these cells, and that makes all the difference.

His next step is not simple but it is by far the easiest choice to make. 

From point A to point B, he runs right back to her. 

His vision of Talia is warped, glitching out at times when he is missing half of the inputs from the destruction to his display at Bruce's hands. Even then, he can recognize that she could cry in his name alone when Talia sees him for herself. And it feels like a brand new realization each time he thinks someone could do anything on his behalf.

「 i̷̬̿t̵̡̬͋ ̴̟̇̾w̵̩͙̽͒ã̵̫̓s̴̞̓̔ ̸̲̾n̷̳̗̅o̴̺̚t̷̛̻̝ ̸̠͔̊h̷̲̺͊i̶͈̽̈s̶͍̕ ̴̥̆̐f̶̨͋͠ä̷̧̤́́u̴̙̞̎l̶̲̠͊t̵͚̎ 」

Jason tells her to start, climbing up onto her table on his accord, lying flat down on his back for her.

“Is that why you look like you cried the whole way back to me?” She asks him as she begins the process of plugging him into the mainframe of her system. “You were never a good liar, Jason.” She averts his gaze, and er fingertips linger over the damage littered across this body she built for him as the self-diagnostic tests begin to run. “So, don’t start now.”

He has no good answers to that. 

She doesn’t shut him down like she usually does, during those early days when his tutors would bring him back to her compound nearly destroyed. 

It comes with learning to fight every battle with a body like his. Where every fall makes for dents and scratches, where every hit taken is a sure-threat that all the components contained within him can be knocked out of place. Overuse wires get fried, or they simply get wrenched or loosened just enough to disconnect all together.

This time, she leaves him cognizant of everything she does for him. 

Talia is both wrists-deep inside of his guts when he makes a strange noise. 

A strange but familiar one that makes her raise a brow.

“I take it you’ve missed me.” She says, her mouth curling into a quirk of an amused grin. If Jason still has cheeks, he would be flushing the kind of full-on blush that goes from the tips of his ears all the way down to his throat.

It is the sensation akin to a short circuit.

He's been broken. Many times over. He's been remade. Just as many times over. 

At her hands though, it has never once felt that way. 

Talia withdraws a hand from the thick cords of his central wiring before she is resting a palm against his groin. The plating there is simple and nondescript.

The secret is what lies underneath.

Jason doesn’t draw in a sharp breath in anticipation. He just holds painfully still to broadcast that same intention. 

It is one touch over a small button hidden just beyond that, tucked right between his thighs, and the release makes no sound at all. The suction makes for a wildly lewd one when Talia grips it by the base to work it free, and it is the soft squelch of rubber being pulled out of the tight clutch of silicone still drenched in synthetic cum.

The sight is absolutely obscene where he is dripping between his inner thighs, the head of the cock still nudging at the rim of his opening like it's giving him a chaste kiss. 

「 ṱ̷̈́́͒ a̷̎̚̚͜ l̷̼̔ i̷̹̓ a̸̭͑ ; p̷̘̯̼̈́͌͛ l̷̡̬̎̅̊ e̶͈͈͑̊ å̵̙͇͑ s̷̯̄ͅ e̵̗͉͋ 」

She doesn’t make him wait.

Shy of begging, he always asks so nicely. 

Talia mounts it on him with a simple click. The attachment plugs into the same sensory inputs as his cunt and he feels the grip of her hand around him like he would if she had three fingers pressed to the last knuckle and spreading inside of him. 

The cock juts out, already oozing precum. And as she curls her hand around the base and squeezes, he drips wetly for her. And this particular cock is both of their favourites even though they could choose from an array of plenty of other options. But it doesn’t feel right at all when Talia climbs up on to the table and straddles him. Pushes her panties to the side and lowers her hips to rub the slick soaked folds of her pussy along the ridges of his cock. Shifts so the head nudges right against her clit.

It has to be Bruce.

If Bruce is the all-too-weird reality of black holes, the one to pull and pull everything in while nothing escapes, not light, not sound, not even time seems to go in a linear pattern when swallowed by the kind of supermassive black hole to take center stage in every galaxy like himself, then Jason is the Singularity.

The signifier; That shapeless dead end where all things go to die.

To cease to exist.

And if they are all that and more, then Talia is the galaxy. 

She is every star in the sky. She is the one to encompass them both.

She lifts up on her knees, and he braces her weight with a hand curving over her outer thigh. It’s the way she looks at him, that same green vibrancy in those eyes. When the thick fan of her lashes quiver to the same tempo as she ruts against him. She burns bright, hot to the touch, sinking down on him.

And in awe, finally dawning on him, Jason rasps out:

「 y̷̛̥͂ọ̴̧̏̃u̵̲̦̍̏ ̶̜͌m̵͍̱̈́͐̋i̶͓̤̇̃͜͠s̵̩̤͘s̷̤̥͑e̸̫̱̗͊d̶͈͖̣̈́͝ ̶͍͑͘͝m̵͎̞̱͑̒̀e̵̝͇ ̵͉̓̋͆ț̵̥̖̌̉̈́ŏ̶̯͘ö̷͖̲́̆ 」

Talia reaches out to draw a finger against one sharp edge of his shattered display like she would if that was the curve of his lips as she begins to move. Every drop has him filling her up to the hilt, every slow deep grind has her feeling that cool metallic press of his skin digging into the inside of her thighs as she pushes close. She revels in that. It is a stuttering inhale that wracks through her, a soft shivering exhale let out in answer.

And she is squeezing down so sweetly all around him to say: “Always.”

She's never once made him question her affections for him. It is no mistake at all. He is in disarray, but she will be the hand to set him straight. 

He always loses time but never as long as the first.

His death did not just rob him of that alone.

This time when he shuts down, he shuts down of his own volition with Talia watching over him. And the dark to take over is welcoming when Jason can still feel her warmth wrapped all around him. He holds on to it like it's his life line when it is with the knowledge that he might not wake up again that he goes under every time. Each time he comes to, each turn he's offered, it is always a slow reassessment as he reloads every last system all at once.

Jason lays perfectly still to take in the fixes and marvels at the convenient updates Talia had installed just for him. The first hint that gives the man away is this: That his display has not been made anew.

Talia chose to leave Jason as he is changed by Bruce.

"... _Jason_."

It's almost reminiscent of his first word said in his death on a mantra: Bruce. Bruce. Bruce. _Bruce_. Only, that's his name said in His voice, and Jason cannot hide the fact that he's back online. Without a pulse, Jason is a soft hum that fades into the background. Or, he should have been.

The gentle whir that starts from his core picks up at the first touch under Bruce’s hands, kicking up a startling notch.

Jason never once expects Bruce to come chasing him all the way back to Nanda Parbat.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for sticking with me!! this took waaaay longer than i anticipated, and this is why i don't usually post wips lol but here is an extra long final chapter because it totally ran away from me.
> 
> also [wodkapudding](https://wodkapudding.tumblr.com/post/632416281886359552/the-human-touch-a-ficmix-for-this-gorgeous-fic-by) made a fanmix for the fic and it's fucking bOMB: [listen here](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fplaylist%3Flist%3DPLbTfIE69E4dGR9Ih_AHp0NJuum7uES0xT&t=YTIzOGViNTcyMWMwZjA2MDNjN2RlOTRmZjMzYWY4M2JmNWNlNWYzMCxzQ1pIeGxycA%3D%3D&b=t%3ASSJ2UK9uA0rpj6jdXfEi6w&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwodkapudding.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F632416281886359552%2Fthe-human-touch-a-ficmix-for-this-gorgeous-fic-by&m=1&ts=1603151942) 😭💖💖💖

Reconciliation comes in many forms. 

How it shouldn't be packaged is waking up with Bruce standing by his bedside like he's been there all along.

If he is to put all of it into any resemblance of what might be words, he thinks he would sound like a broken record stuck on the same track. Saying the same line on repeat. Singing to the same tune like it's the only one he knows instead of being the Robin that had the stuffing beaten out of him.

Front hand or back hand, the question would go.

And then it would be the fresh bloom of pain upon pain, the gut splitting terror of bodily knowing that sharp whistle of the crowbar as it cuts through the air aiming for another bone.

Not just to break but to shatter. And not just to shatter but to grind into fine dust. The question can change, but the answer never fucking does.

It _hurts_ , he thinks.

And then he wasn't thinking at all—

"— _Jason._ "

She breaks through the loud whirring that is on the cusp of overwhelming his entire functioning system. And he latches on to his name said in her voice said in that exact tone in order to blink away the overheating warnings coming up on his display. It takes a second but he overrides every last auto-command to keep from shutting down once more.

In his entirety, he will not fall for sentimentality again. Or, that is supposedly the initial plan.

"Hello, Jason." Talia says at the first sign of his return and she's gentle even when she doesn't need to be. She has one hand resting over his thigh, and she's the same sight every time he's woken up since that very last time. And there is something ruthlessly convincing to a stability like that.

Her other hand coming to up to cup one side of his curved display. Bruce standing just behind her fades into the dark corners of the lab, and that is deliberate. Jason thinks that might be for the best, for now.

"There you are," she murmurs.

And Jason thinks that: [ y e s ; i a m ]

It's not humid, and it's not cold.

Not that either one of those things affect him as he is now. It still makes for some very perfect weather when it is just the two of them alone together, sitting out in the central courtyard of the compound with a tea tray resting on his lap. Talia is on the bench next to him, drinking from a cup. And the aroma is floral, chrysanthemum with dried goji berries and honey stirred in while it's still hot.

It's a routine she's set for herself a very long time ago, it's one she made room for him when he became a part of her life.

"Is this not what you wanted?"

It is. This is everything that he thought he wanted. Except.

「 i thought it was 」

Bruce stays in Nanda Parbat.

To imagine there is a Gotham in existence that's gone days without her Knight, Jason doesn't know what to think. He keeps the tray completely still on his lap, refills Talia's cup up to the brim when she holds it out to him.

「 this was supposed to be everything i want ; but i am not so sure ; not anymore 」

To have all of Bruce's focus now makes for a very strange thing all together.

If Jason remains more than simply fractions of human, there might be a humanity found within him to give Bruce another chance at this. But Jason isn't so sure if he can do this all over again. It feels like too many opportunities to be stripped down to the very last wire again. And if there is one thing Jason knows, it is that he isn't particularly capable of withstanding pain of this magnification.

It is that he might not survive another try at this.

There are no nociceptors to be found on him, but Jason feels all of it keenly.

He blames it on the humanity left in him.

He blames it all on Bruce.

Nanda Parbat is not like Gotham at all.

For one, Bruce exists without the Bat here. That in itself is strange, and it is a stranger sight to see. Jason catches himself staring every single time.

Even when Bruce disappears for hours on end, a flash of red and blue preceding just before that, it feels like no time at all before he finds the man back within the grounds of the League compound. He always comes back even if he never does approach Jason, not since that first time in Talia's lab when he woke up with Bruce at his side.

And it is like the man has come to the same conclusion as Jason himself, that this is somehow Bruce's cross to bear.

Talia doesn't point out that Bruce is waiting for Jason to make the first move. Displaying patience where he's never shown before. Penance for all the things he's done and all the things he did not. And cannot, and a hundred thousand things that man has rightfully convinced himself to dedicate his life to. Talia believes that Jason will figure it all out in due time.

She finishes her tea.

「 you do not belong here 」

No, Bruce does not. Not the first time Bruce tried to make a home out of the League, and definitely not all the times after where he was forced to return as Batman to keep the reach of Ra's al Ghul's League from bleeding out into the rest of the world. But this is always going to be different. Jason is not the League. Jason is an entity separate from anything and anyone else.

Bruce stands still as Jason comes to him, curls his hands at his sides to keep from reaching out like he wants to. From touching and holding and never letting go. But this isn't about himself. Bruce isn't here to convince Jason to come home. Bruce is here to convince himself that Jason is alright.

"You're right, Jay. But I think I can afford some time away."

「 is this some kind of vacation for you then 」

Bruce lets Jason note the new strands of silver in his hair, the same old furrowed lines between his brows. Bruce would let him see all that and more if just to have Jason within arm's reach again.

His answer, as it comes, is the truth.

"It feels more like a dream."

Bruce's eyes are blue.

The same shade, the same endless depth that Jason cannot figure out for the life [ h a h ] of him.

The question goes: 

「 what am i 」

And he is neither the Riddler nor the Question.

The answer goes:

"You're mine." 

And he is equal parts right and wrong.

Because he's mine too, and she makes it clear.

They are in her room, on the center of her bed with her sheets pooling halfway to the ground.

The creak of the door is an interruption only one of them anticipates, and Jason isn't sitting up in alarm only because Talia is lying stretched out on top of him. She is the perfect picture of being comfortable exactly where she is, leaning into the cool touch of his fingertips drifting up and down at the slowest and most indulgent of paces over her lower back.

Jason stills the movement of his hands.

"Beloved." She says in greeting without looking to the door.

In the dim lights of the room, they do not hide the things they have done. The choice she lays out is Bruce's to make.

Jason might be feeling caught in the surprise but there is never shame to any of it. Talia stands strong on that front. His hands stutter, starting up the caress once more only when Talia makes a soft low noise in protest. She doesn't let him go, she keeps him pinned firmly in place. Making a pleased little sigh like she always does when she is deeply turned on by the way he handles her.

She always wants him as he is.

And he thinks he can learn to love that too no matter how steep that learning curve is.

It is Bruce's choice to make. A choice to stay. Over the slope of Talia's shoulder, Jason watches Bruce as he steps through the threshold of Talia's room. After all this, it is always going to be his choice to stay.

"I haven't had anyone call me that in a long time." Bruce murmurs, and in the quiet of the room, the timbre of his voice stands out. A confession that is just as telling as the look in his eyes. The smile thin, but holding so much warmth and nostalgia within just that one simple gesture alone.

It gets Talia to chuckle, the sound vibrating right through to Jason with how close she has maneuvered herself against him. "Is that your way of saying you've missed me?"

Bruce comes up to the side of the bed, close enough to touch. Heat radiating from the sliver of bare skin where the collar of his shirt dips low enough. His eyes as he stares down at them is just as blue as Jason remembers, the colour burning with the focus in them.

"No," Bruce replies in the quiet stillness of the room, "but this is."

It's the offer in that alone. The layers and layers of intent just below.

It pins Jason under his gaze. Gives him the chance to take in exactly _how_ Bruce looks at them both.

A knee up on the bed, and the mattress sinks beneath Bruce's weight.

"So this is what you two get up to when I'm not around?"

Talia doesn't look away from the cracked display of Jason's face, not for the splinters of shattered glass or the darkness lying just beneath the surface like a deep still lake.

"Among other things."

Her whisper is telling of a great deal of memories she holds to heart. Her lips as they curl into a smile at her not-confession speaks volumes of all the time they had between them alone. It's her promise to Jason, and Jason alone.

And if Jason's heart still beats on a one-two pulse, a thump-thump- _thump_ , then perhaps he could even be shy about this.

Bruce broadcasts his intentions and gives Jason free reign whether to let him come close at all. Jason holds still, and if his chest still rises and falls on every breath, then that too might be stopped short. At the first touch, it reminds Jason of many things he thought he lost. Bruce's hand to the side of Jason's neck, his other to thread through the long dark strands of Talia's hair. They both tilt into it.

Jason remembers what it's like to have butterflies beating up a storm inside of his stomach.

If they are about missed opportunities then they are years too late to be catching up.

If this is about making up lost time then they are doing it all wrong.

Talia pulls back to sit on her hunches, over the widest part of Jason's thighs. She moves like the slide of her silk sheets, all along the front of him.

Like the reaction to her single act of motion, in equilibrium and in opposition, he sinks down easily against the mattress, letting his grip go loose, letting her go wherever she wants. The tips of his fingers drag deliberately around the swell of her ass and the curve of her hips on each side, trailing thin tendrils of stretch marks as he slides his hands up the dip of her waist to trace along her rib cage just below her breasts.

She straddles him, she grinds down on him. Rutting the soaked folds of her cunt against the curve of his cock, her clit rubbing at the ribbed edges of the silicone emulating veins with each pointed graze.

Every exhale is a shudder.

Every inhale feels like the first one as they both watch her mesmerized.

When Talia takes hold of Bruce's hand, untangles his fingers from her hair, she guides it right between them. She has him feeling out the replicate of his own cock being used for their pleasure and their pleasure alone.

"That's—"

If Bruce Wayne is a man prone to being surprised, then maybe this would go a little different. He sounds strangled with that single word he was able to let out. His eyes as they go wide also dilate with lust, and Jason can pick that up like he can pick out the man's pulse going at double time. It reminds him that Bruce is human through and through, it brings them both to even footing at the thought that he wants them too.

"That's right, that's all you." She breathes out, sinking her teeth down on the swell of her bottom lip, muffling a groan of what might be something scathing when Bruce seems to come to several realizations all at once. Bruce plants one hand to the small of her back, applies pressure right at that point to have her pressing even closer against the line of Jason's cock. Her eyes are half-lidded and dark, her breathing goes harsh, but she doesn't make it easy on him when she can still bite out: "You've kept us waiting for a long fucking time, beloved."

"Let me make it up to you." Bruce answers while his eyes follow the exposed column of her throat, the sweat that makes it glisten. Trailing over her breasts and the dark peak of her nipples standing erect. Skimming along the slope of her stomach to linger right where they are all connected. It's all the invitation he needs.

So close to her climax, it doesn't take much else.

It is the slide of Jason's cock to the hilt inside of her, holding completely still as she shakes through her orgasm. It is two of Bruce's slick drenched fingers working at her clit, the rough pads along every exposed nerve until it is too much and she is quivering all over, from her lashes to her thighs to the clench of her pussy all around him.

Jason's hands do not pull back, he helps her ride Bruce's fingers as he pushes her over the edge once more in quick succession.

Bruce's eyes find Jason's display, and even if he doesn't have anything to resemble eyes, Bruce catches Jason's gaze, looking deep within.

"You know I was always going to love you," Bruce says to him.

And said like this, it sounds like a sure thing. Except.

No, Jason thinks: [ n o ; i d o n ' t ]

There might be a world out there where he does. But in this one, in this life, and his last, he cannot possibly know that. Not if Bruce has never once said it out loud.

「 you do not know me as i am now 」

Jason starts, and he has to wonder how this is supposed to end. They are in a League compound with Bruce looking like he never wants Jason to leave his line of sight. It is not a bitter taste in his mouth, he doesn't have that luxury.

"No, I don't, Jason." Bruce answers, and there is something unflinching to it. "But I'll like to if you'll let me."

「 i am not the brat that steals the wheels from your car 」

"No, you're not." Not anymore. No matter how much you wish you could go back to the start. "But I'm not the idiot that parks my car in Crime Alley either."

Not anymore.

The strange garbled noise is his laugh, and his shoulders shake gently with it as Jason answers:「 learned your lesson the first time 」

Bruce thinks it is the loveliest sound, Bruce thinks he already wants to hear it again: "Only because my teacher was the best I ever had."

It is the muscle memory of being loved.

Of being thought of. Of being grieved. Talia guides Bruce's hands as he maps Jason out.

From the thick cords of his neck to the junction where his collar bones should be, from the joint in both shoulder to the firepower contained within his arms. From the sharp cut just below the placement of the last rib to his cod piece to the streamline design of thighs and legs, he is made to function as he does, efficiency and calculated devastation with every blow.

Bruce goes slow, learning him as he is now.

Presented on his back with his thighs wide apart, Bruce kneels in between. Talia drapes herself across the breadth of Bruce's back and murmurs the little things that keep Jason tick while Bruce drags the pads of his fingertips along the metal for his skin. Jason's sensory inputs greedily takes it every simple pressure point of those hands all over him.

It is a lot to take in.

If Jason's throat works the way it used to, he would be swallowing hard. This need he still feels, this want that has carried over through death, through rebirth, through being remade at Talia's hands into everything that he is now, he has to imagine everything is supposed to culminate with Bruce here and now.

「 i loved you ; b 」

Bruce doesn't still with shock, the man doesn't even look surprised.

"I know," Bruce tells him, and there is a deep-seeded sadness in his eyes. Jason recognizes that look. It is the same expression on Batman's face stepping foot into Crime Alley long before Jason ever learned to read the man with or without the cowl. Bruce has never been good with hiding this particular emotion. It's death, it's grief. It's the startling realization of being left behind. "I didn't think I had to say it. I thought you knew. I thought my actions would be enough to show you that I love you."

「 you can show me now 」

Her hand over his, her fingers guiding his to push past the initial resistance at his rim to be swallowed whole.

It has to hurt, the way Bruce fucks into him.

Hard and fast and harsh and deep.

Like he can't help himself. Like he is trying his best not to consume him whole. 

Drawing back barely halfway before he is snapping forward, driving all the way inside of him, his hips pressing flushed to Jason's own and the sharp smack of metal to skin cannot be comfortable at all. Except. Bruce doesn't pause, his pace doesn't even falter. Jason creaks under Bruce's hands, and he is still deciding if that is his favourite new detail yet.

Jason wants scratches and dents like scars against the smooth metal of his body from them. This feels like a dangerous thought to have but it makes him hot. The twin fans in his back working straining, whirring loudly as he keeps them stifled against the mattress. He thinks he might even be okay with being wrecked and made anew by them. 

He has been remade at Talia's hands.

He wants it under Bruce's hands. The man fills him to the brim, keeps him on the real thing and it has Jason feeling like it'd be just fine if he simply shakes apart until he's spare parts.

Talia is lying next to him, one of her hand is wrapped around his cock, casually squeezing down on the base, making the slit drool the same mix of synthetic cum that makes his cunt drip. The other hand is buried into the wires between the thick cords of his neck and that does something for him too. It's the intimacy of how close she is curled around him, her skin flushed against his.

Her mouth barely inches from his display and it's like she can lean in and kiss him and get all the same pleasures she would if he could kiss her back, mouth and tongue and teeth and all.

Bruce groans as he bottoms out, unable to look away from the sight that Talia and Jason make for him as they lay tangled together just like this.

"You can come inside." Talia says to him, looking up at Bruce from underneath the brush of long lashes against her cheeks. "He loves it when I do."

Jason chokes on a strange little noise, and it sounds quite a bit like the way glitches do when there is damage to his voice box or if the connector in between gets all messed up. Jason isn't aware he is capable but on second thought, it isn't like he imagined that he would be taking Bruce's real cock and having it fill him so completely like he does. Jason squeezes down, and he tries not to be embarrassed with the way Bruce's breath catches at how tight he goes.

Once more, and it is the stuttered curse being bitten out from between Bruce's teeth.

Jason is grinning even if Bruce can't tell.

Orgasm always scrambles Jason a little.

This time it's a lot.

Jason is still coming back online when he registers the hot flood of release inside of his cunt. He thinks he makes a noise at that but he cannot be sure what he even sounds like anymore. His senses return one at a time and when his display comes back online, he can feel Bruce's palms curved against the inside of his thighs, still holding him in place.

Bruce pulls out slowly, and as he does, Jason can see the way the man watches just how his semen comes leaking out of Jason. All of his focus made to concentrate on just that. It's thick and viscous, making a right mess between Jason's inner thighs. It looks right, like his seed is meant to be inside of him.

It feels right too.

_—pop!_

It's a simple detachment when Bruce's mock cock comes off from Jason's groin. Talia doesn't bother with dragging it through the splatter of precum that had dripped on to Jason's stomach with his pussy drenched in cum. She simply presses the thick head to Jason's entrance and the spread past that initial resistance has the full thing easing all the way inside of him.

"I know." Talia addresses them both when she is saying the one thing they are all thinking. "Such a shame otherwise not to plug you up, Jason."

It makes for a perfect fit.

In far more ways than one when Jason is lying in the center of Talia's bed with Bruce on one side of him and her on the other. They leave no room at all, not even a fraction of empty space to be found in between. Everywhere they can, they are pressed to him. Their bare skin to his, a steady heady pulse in their veins, chest holding out on that next easy breath.  
  
Jason doesn't need the sleep, and he is not entirely sure if they need it either.  
  
But to stop and to stay make for quite the occasion. Reconciliation comes in many forms as Jason knows. Jason just isn't entirely sure if this is one of them. Perhaps, they can find out.

Between the three of them, it seems like good odds.

Talia's fingers are interlaced with his own, Bruce is sleeping on his side and his arm drapes all the way across Jason's waist in an embrace to brush at Talia's hips. There hasn't been anything less than at least one constant point of contact between Bruce and himself since the moment he agreed to Bruce's first touch. They are under a thin sheet, their sweat cools while Jason runs hot where they crowd into him, leeching the chill from the metal of his shell with their touch.

All of it makes him feel human again.

And that, on it's own, makes for a pretty big step.


End file.
